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spk02: Good morning and welcome to the PPL Corporation fourth quarter and year-end 2022 financial results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Andy Ludwig, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk10: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining the PPL Corporation conference call on fourth quarter and year-end 2022 financial results. We've provided slides for this presentation on the investor section of our website. We'll begin today's call with updates from Vince Sorge, PPL President and CEO, and Joe Bergstein, Chief Financial Officer. And we'll conclude with a Q&A session following our prepared remarks. Before we get started, I'll draw your attention to slide two and a brief cautionary statement. Our presentation today contains forward-looking statements about future operating results or other future events. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements. Please refer to the appendix of this presentation and PPL's SEC filings for a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ from the forward-looking statements. We will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including earnings from ongoing operations and adjusted gross margins on this call. For reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures, please refer to the appendix. I'll now turn the call over to Vince.
spk11: Thank you, Andy, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter and year-end investor update. We'll keep our remarks brief this morning given the comprehensive update we shared with you on January 11th. We continue to be extremely excited for PPL's bright future and the value we intend to deliver for our customers and share owners. Turning to slide four, 2022 was a remarkable year in PPL's history, one that has completely redefined our company. It marks the beginning of a new era, as we are now positioned as a premier pure play U.S. regulated utility holding company. Our strategic repositioning began with the sale of our U.K. business in 2021 and concluded in May of 2022 with the addition of Rhode Island Energy and its almost 800,000 customers. I'm very proud of the execution from our team to close this transaction and complete the transition activities to date with National Grid. We are on schedule to complete all of the TSAs in 2024 as originally planned. The acquisition of Rhode Island Energy also enhances our scale and enables PPL to be a leader in our sector for years to come. This includes positioning our company to deliver top tier six to 8% earnings and dividend growth through at least 2026. With one of the best credit profiles in our sector, our balance sheet can support our growth without equity issuances throughout the planning horizon. And while we executed on our strategic repositioning, we remain steadfast in our pursuit of delivering excellent financial and operational results in 2022. First and foremost, we achieved ongoing earnings of $1.41 per share, beating the midpoint of our forecast, which we had increased in November. This is a fantastic accomplishment considering all the extra work our teams completed this past year in connection with our strategic repositioning. In addition to delivering solid financial results, we also laid the groundwork for capital investments we need to make for years to come in our pursuit of delivering an exceptional customer experience at an affordable price. Specifically, we presented a balanced investment plan in Kentucky to replace nearly 1,500 megawatts of retiring coal generation. This plan best positions our utilities in Kentucky to serve our customers with safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy while the state fosters significant economic development and growth. We also designed a series of plans for our newly acquired Rhode Island energy, strategies to deliver the energy grids necessary to achieve the state's impressive clean energy goals of 100% renewable energy by 2033. These plans include advanced metering, grid modernization, and our first infrastructure safety and reliability plans under our ownership. These plans emphasize just some of the robust investment opportunities at our utilities. We're also looking at potential regulated investment opportunities beyond our four utilities, leveraging our expertise in transmission development to open new doors for potential growth. This includes our strategic partnership with WindGrid, an ELIA subsidiary where we are exploring offshore transmission solutions into England. Any investment opportunities stemming from this partnership are not included in our capital forecast and represent potential upside to our long-term growth plan. On the operational front, during 2022, we maintained our top quartile reliability in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, despite the increased frequency and severity of storms in our service territories. And in just a few months of ownership, Rhode Island Energy has experienced a marked improvement in reliability and exceeded 2022 expectations by more than 10%. One example of this excellent performance was during Winter Storm Elliott. Rhode Island Energy was the first major New England utility to achieve full customer restoration in the early morning of Christmas Day. We also maintained our top quartile customer satisfaction at PPL Electric Utilities and Kentucky Utilities. And while we're proud of these achievements, we are sympathetic to the concerns of our Pennsylvania customers who experienced increases in their December bills as a result of higher energy prices. While we don't control the price of electricity supply, we know that it can have a meaningful impact on our customers. And while the default rate for PPL Electric's non-shopping customers increased in December, many of our customers who have chosen third-party suppliers saw even higher price increases and are paying significantly more than our default rate of approximately 14.5 cents. Our most recent review of shopping results found that in November, over 40% of our residential shopping customers paid a higher rate than our default rate. Over 100,000 customers paid a rate between 25% and 100% more than the default rate. And nearly 20,000 customers paid more than double our default rate. For the last two years, PPL Electric has been a vocal advocate on behalf of our customers for greater safeguards and other actions to protect them from overpaying for their electricity supply. We've proposed various consumer protection reforms with our Pennsylvania legislators and regulators and are again having discussions with them for the benefit of our customers. In addition to higher bills from these increased energy prices, a large number of our PPL Electric Utilities customers received estimated bills in December due to a technical issue. The timing of higher electricity bills and the increased number of estimated bills created some confusion and concern for customers. We have since fixed the technical issue and have temporarily doubled the resources at our call centers to address customer questions and significantly reduce call wait times. And in further support of our customers, we've waived late fees, and expanded our no-shutoff practice over the winter to include all residential and small business customers. We're also focused on communicating even more with our customers about high energy prices and what customers can do to minimize their energy bills. While this is an important topic for us and our customers that I wanted to address today, I want to be clear that we do not expect this matter to have a significant impact on our financial results. As we've discussed at length, one of the key aspects of our strategy is to drive operating efficiencies across the entire business. In developing our strategy, we anticipated affordability being a key area of focus for customers and regulators even before we saw the effects of inflation and high commodity costs. We all know the energy grids need significant investment to ensure reliability and resiliency while preparing for renewables, DERs, and more electrification. This is why our plan best positions PPL to achieve our goals while focusing on affordability for our customers. Turning to slide five, CPL's outlook for 2023 is one that is simply focused on executing our utility of the future strategy. In my 2022 recap, I discussed that we are on track with our integration activities with Rhode Island Energy. An obvious top priority for 2023 is to remain on track with our Rhode Island integration, setting us up for completion in 2024. We have a $2.4 billion capital plan that improves the safety, reliability, and resiliency of our networks while addressing our customers' evolving needs. We're on track to deliver the first leg of our $175 million O&M savings target by 2026, with $50 to $60 million of savings in 2023 as we deploy our playbook and continue to optimize our operation. These savings will provide a strong basis for us to deliver the midpoint of our 2023 earnings forecast of $1.58 per share. Recall, this forecast represents a 7% increase from our pro forma 2022 forecast of $1.48 per share. We will also focus on the regulatory filings in Kentucky and Rhode Island to deliver least cost and reliable energy for our customers and help to advance the clean energy transition. Turning to slide six, As we executed our strategic repositioning over the past few years, we took a hard look at how we wanted to be defined as a company and management team. Simply put, we want to be the best utility company in the U.S., the best at delivering safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy to our customers and competitive long-term returns to our shareholders. We've included on the right side of the slide the categories that we'll use to measure our success against our peers. In short, We will be targeting top decile or top quartile performance in safety, reliability, customer satisfaction, and cost efficiency, while at the same time targeting a premium stock valuation. While we're not there yet in all categories, I firmly believe we are on the right path to get there, and I'm excited to see us advance down this path. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Joe for the financial update. Joe?
spk07: Thank you, Vince, and good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide eight. Our solid fourth quarter financial results closed out a great year for the company. Fourth quarter gap earnings were 26 cents per share. Special items in the fourth quarter were two cents per share, primarily due to integration and related expenses associated with the acquisition of Rhode Island Energy, partially offset by a tax benefit due to the provision to final 2021 tax return adjustments primarily related to the sale of WPD. Adjusting for these special items, fourth quarter earnings from ongoing operations were $0.28 per share, an improvement of $0.06 per share compared to 2021. With these strong fourth quarter results, our 2022 GAAP earnings totaled $1.02 per share. Special items for the year were $0.39 per share. primarily related to integration and related expenses associated with the acquisition of Rhode Island Energy. Our ongoing earnings for the year were $1.41 per share compared to $1.05 per share for 2021, exceeding the midpoint of our earnings forecast for 2022. Turning to the ongoing segment drivers for the quarter on slide nine, our Pennsylvania regulated segment results improved by one cent year over year. Results were primarily driven by higher sales volumes due to milder-than-normal weather last year and increased returns on additional capital investments in transmission. These improvements were offset partially by higher O&M expenses. Our Kentucky segment decreased by one cent per share year over year. Improved sales volumes in Kentucky, also due to milder-than-normal weather experienced last year, were more than offset by higher O&M and interest expense. The addition of our Rhode Island segment increased earnings by $0.03 per share for the quarter. Results at corporate and other increased $0.03 per share compared to the prior year, primarily due to lower O&M expenses, lower income taxes, and other factors that were not individually significant. These favorable drivers were partially offset by higher interest expense. Our strong performance in the fourth quarter reflects another proof point of delivering on expectations since our repositioning last year. Our results for the full year are on slide 10. We reported improved results across each business segment in 2022. The operating segment results presented here exclude the impact of share accretion, which we've shown as a separate bar on the far right of the slide. Recall that we used a portion of the UK business sales proceeds to repurchase $1 billion of shares back in the fourth quarter of 2021, resulting in $0.05 of accretion in 2022. We also used another $4 billion of the UK sales proceeds to reduce our holding company debt, strengthening our balance sheet to one of the best in the sector. This reduction of debt was the primary driver for the $0.10 improvement in our corporate and other segment for the year. Turning to the operating segments, our Pennsylvania regulated segment delivered a six cent per share increase for the year compared to 2021. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by returns on additional capital investments in transmission, higher peak transmission demand, and improved sales volumes. These favorable drivers were partially offset by higher O&M expenses, including increased uncollectibles, additional vegetation management costs, and IT amortization costs. Our Kentucky regulated segment earnings increased by 7 cents per share for the year compared to 2021. Our improved results in Kentucky were primarily driven by a full year of higher retail rates that went into effect in July 2021 and higher sales volumes. These favorable drivers were partially offset by higher O&M expenses, including vegetation management, plant outage and storm costs, and higher depreciation expense. Our Rhode Island segment added $0.08 per share to ongoing earnings for the year, reflecting the period from our acquisition in late May to the end of the year. This was a great year for the company and is yet another demonstration of our commitment to deliver on and exceed our financial goals. Turning to slide 11, we expect to keep that momentum heading into this year. Today, we are reaffirming our 2023 earnings forecast range of $1.50 to $1.65 per share and the midpoint of $1.58 per share. We remain confident in our ability to deliver our forecast by leveraging our proven operating model, a strategy focused on driving cost efficiencies to reduce O&M, which enables investments necessary to advance our energy networks in the most affordable manner. Our Pennsylvania segment results are expected to increase by 4 cents per share in 2023, primarily due to returns on additional capital investments in transmission and lower O&M, partially offset by higher interest expense. We project our Kentucky segment results to increase by 5 cents per share in 2023, primarily due to lower O&M, partially offset by higher interest expense. Our Rhode Island segment results are expected to increase by $0.08 per share in 2023, primarily due to the impact of a full year's earnings. We project corporate and other results to be flat year over year. Moving to slide 12, in connection with requests from many of our investors, we've reallocated our Kentucky holding company financing costs to corporate and other beginning January 1st. This reallocation provides a clearer view of the utility earnings for our Kentucky regulated segment and is consistent with how we report the Pennsylvania and Rhode Island segments. We've illustrated the impact of this reallocation to our actual 2022 ongoing earnings on this slide to show the 2022 segment results on a consistent basis with our 2023 segment forecast. Moving to slide 13. Our Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of 24 cents per share to be paid on April 3rd to shareholders of record as of March 10th. As we discussed in January, the 24-cent dividend is a 7% increase that aligns with our predictable, linear, and competitive annual EPS growth of 6% to 8%. This is also within our targeted dividend payout range of 60% to 65%. Combining our targeted EPS growth with our dividend yield provides investors with a compelling total return proposition in the range of 9% to 11% per year. This is consistent with our mission of delivering long-term returns to share owners. That concludes my prepared remarks, and I'll turn the call back over to Vince.
spk11: Thank you, Joe. Over the past two years, we've taken bold steps to transform PPL for long-term growth and success. and to improve share owner return while building on our core strengths. Since then, we have continued to deliver on the goals we set, exceeding the midpoint of our 2022 earnings forecast, advancing industry-leading grid modernization, providing highly reliable electricity and gas service, and economically advancing our clean energy strategy. And our plan provides investors with an attractive return proposition, one that the entire management team and I intend to deliver. With that operator, let's open it up for questions.
spk02: We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two.
spk12: At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble the roster. And our first question will come from Char Parisa of Guggenheim Partners.
spk02: Please go ahead.
spk01: Hey, team. Hey, Char. Hey, Vince. Just two quick ones here after, you know, you guys obviously had a comprehensive update a little while ago. I know you guys are obviously targeting $50 million to $60 million of O&M savings this year, but it's been kind of a super mild winter. Q1 looks to be a little bit rough. I guess how comfortable are you around the 158 midpoint when you're also layering in sort of interest expense pressures and some of the externalities we're seeing out there? So I guess if the tail risks don't abate, can you sort of pull forward some of that incremental $70 million in O&M savings next year into this year? I guess can you just talk a little bit about the contingencies here? Thanks.
spk11: Yeah, sure. Look, I would just say we still remain competitive. incredibly confident in our ability to hit the 23 forecast. As you've mentioned, and with many of our peers, I would say the most significant potential headwinds or factors that we're looking at today are interest rates and inflation, and then, of course, weather, which you referenced, and its impact potentially on sales or our storm costs. I would say regarding inflation and interest rates, at this point, we're really not seeing anything significant enough that we don't think we can manage as we look forward for not only 23, but going forward. And, you know, I would just reiterate that we built a plan to withstand volatile markets and still enable us to hit the targets that we've laid out for you all. So we're still, you know, very confident. Don't necessarily see the need to really accelerate O&M, but that's always a lever we have at our disposal.
spk01: Great. And then just lastly, Vince, that's helpful. Just on the Kentucky CPCN process, interveners are obviously starting to line up. Looks like there's been some delays on solar PPAs, and the PSE just engaged a consultant to do an analysis earlier this week. Can you just speak to the process a little bit more broadly and what we should be watching for from interveners and procedurally between now and your next update in the spring? Thanks. Yeah, sure. Sure.
spk11: The CPCM process does continue, I would say, really on plan, as was laid out in the procedural schedule. Last week, the KPSC granted several interveners their motions to intervene. Char, none of those were a surprise to us, so I would say everything, again, progressing as we would have expected there. The next step is for us to get the data requests from the interveners, which are due to us by the end of today, actually. This will then start a series of requests and testimony that are scheduled really to continue through mid-August. And then once we get through that, that will culminate with the public hearing during the last week of August. And then, as I think you know, the Commission has indicated that they expect to provide a decision by November 6th.
spk01: Got it. Terrific. Fantastic. That's all I had, and congrats, and we'll be seeing you real soon. Appreciate it. Great. Thanks, John.
spk02: The next question comes from Durgesh Chopra of Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
spk09: Hey, Durgesh. Hey. Good morning. Good morning, team. And what's really helpful, thank you for your commentary on the Pennsylvania billing issue. We were getting some questions on that, so appreciate the color. I just had one quick follow-up. Everything is pretty clear. You've asked for AFUDC in Kentucky. Is that part of this CPCN filing, or is that a separate decision? What should we be looking for there, and how to track that specifically?
spk11: Yeah, that'll come out through the CPCN process, so that'll be resolved all at the same time, I guess.
spk09: Got it. Okay, perfect. That's a lie, guys. Thank you so much. And go Eagles for 2024.
spk11: Not an Eagles fan, but that's okay.
spk02: The next question comes from Paul Patterson of Glenrock Associates. Please go ahead.
spk05: Hey, Paul. Hey, how's it going? Good. On the call, I think you prepared remarks. You were talking about discussions with regulators about affordability and what have you. I was just wondering if you could give a little more color as to what they might be looking at, and if you have a little bit more discussion about Kentucky and, I guess, Pennsylvania, what you're hearing there.
spk11: Yeah, so some of the things that we've been engaged in in Pennsylvania – really with the state legislature as well as our regulator, the PUC. Most significantly, Paul, we've requested to have customers return to the EDC, so the companies like PPL Electric, and to return to our default rate when they come off the standard offer program, as that's where we've seen our customers gouge the most when they come off the standard offer plan. In some cases, our customers' rates have increased by more than 300% in the month following coming off the standard offer program. So our recommendation was just to have folks, once the standard offer program ends, if they hadn't already signed up for a new plan, that they would just default to our default rate, which would limit how much the price could increase as opposed to, like I said, this 300% or more, which we had seen some of our customers get hit with. We've also requested that suppliers provide detailed information about their agreements to our customers, both to the electric companies, so again, companies like PPL Electric, as well as the PUC, so that we can augment any supplier notifications and make sure that our customers understand some of these plans that they're signing up for. We've also asked for tighter restrictions around introductory or teaser rates, as well as variable rates. Again, our customers have been impacted significantly by some of those areas. So overall, I would just say we're really trying to see greater accountability with our suppliers.
spk05: Okay, that makes a lot of sense. This is kind of a problem that's sort of plagued retail choice jurisdictions around the country. I mean, if you look over the years, there's some places that are talking about actually limiting you know, customer choice to more sophisticated customers. In other words, there just doesn't seem to be a lot of value that's being driven by these third-party providers in many cases. And is there any talk about that anywhere in any of the areas that you operate?
spk11: I'm not seeing that yet, Paul. But again, you know, so we've been engaged with With our public officials over the last couple of years on trying to get some of these measures implemented, and they haven't to date, we are continuing to engage with them. I think it's more pronounced now with what we've seen with wholesale power prices and natural gas prices, so we will continue to engage on behalf of our customers to try to get these wholesale, or not the wholesale rates, but the rates that third-party suppliers are charging our customers. In many cases, you know, as I said in my prepared remarks, customers are paying a lot more, even more than double our default rate. And you can go out on the PUC's website and actually get prices that are even cheaper than our default rate. And so it's a huge issue, as you mentioned, and it's why we're spending a lot of time right now on educating our customers to make sure that they know what plans are available, but also to just make sure they really read the fine print and understand the plans that they're entering into and doing what's best for them and their families.
spk05: Okay, awesome. Thanks so much. Have a great one. Thanks, Paul.
spk02: The next question comes from Angie Storzinski of Seaport. Please go ahead.
spk13: Hi, Angie.
spk03: Hi, how are you? So I have a question about Kentucky, and I understand it's a bit premature, I guess. But given the timeline for the approval by FERC of the Kentucky Power Sale, I think it's increasingly likely that that transaction doesn't happen. And I'm just wondering if this asset stays within AP, they're probably going to try to you know, boost its growth profile, which, you know, that could result in additional coal plant retirements or plans to retire coal plants. And I'm just wondering, how do you think that could impact your pending proposal? I mean, we've been hearing some noise in newspapers in the state about reliability concerns on the back of co-planned retirements. And again, just thinking a bigger picture, if there were to be more large state utilities with a similar growth path towards co-planned retirement, if that could actually derail the process or you think actually that could be helpful?
spk11: Yeah, I'm not sure I think it would impact us one way or the other, Angie. I think, again, our CPCN has been designed to strike an appropriate balance with different fuel sources to provide that safe, reliable, and affordable energy while we're replacing 1,500 megawatts that is reaching our end of lives. We've been very clear that we have not accelerated the retirement of our coal plants. These are plants that are that are end of life. And so our CPCN with the commission is really how best to replace that retiring coal generation with the least cost, most reliable sources of energy. And as you know, we have a balance of combined cycle plants in there with solar, with some storage, et cetera. So I don't know that I would see whether the sale process or whether the asset remains with AEP really impacting our process.
spk03: Okay, and then secondly, assuming that you do get the approval, the certificate from the Kentucky Commission, would you then file a rate case to recover the investment, or the plan would be either seek a rider recovery or basically further cut costs to pay for the capital spending and the return on it?
spk11: Yes, so we do, we are requesting AFUDC coverage for the capital investments we would be making under the CPCN, so that would provide us with the earnings aspect of making those investments before they go in service. From a cash perspective, Again, one of the reasons why we have the balance sheet that we have is it enables us to engage with our regulators to mitigate near-term rate impacts, but at the same time get the investments done that we know we need to get done. And then we would pick that up in a rate case sometime in the 26th or later timeframe.
spk03: Okay. And then lastly, this point that you brought up about retail choice, So it's kind of an interesting time, right? Because if you think, I mean, I'm assuming that you guys had procured electricity ahead of time. So you had likely locked in, elevated power prices. So wouldn't actually a retail choice make sense to residential customers in this power price environment where power prices had fallen pretty dramatically? As such, there should be a positive differential between what a retailer can offer versus what the incumbent utility offers, no?
spk11: Yeah, you would think so, Angie. So our price to compare is about 14.5 cents. There are suppliers out there that are below 10 cents, exactly to your point. We've had to procure that power over 6, 12, 18-month time horizons in accordance with the PUC process. So, yeah, so we're not necessarily getting the immediate impact of the precipitous decline in energy prices over the last month or two. Some of our suppliers are, which they're able to provide, like I said, sub-10 cent contracts. It makes it interesting that many of our customers were paying 20 and over 30 cents in December for their third-party supplier energy. So, great, great points.
spk03: Okay, thank you.
spk12: Thanks for taking my question.
spk13: Sure.
spk02: The next question comes from David Arcaro of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
spk08: Oh, hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Hey, a couple of minor questions here. I just wanted to check on the reallocation of the Kentucky Holdco drag. I was just wondering, are there any implications there either from a regulatory perspective or from like a debt refinancing perspective as you shift that into corporate and other, or is it really just as simple as moving around that EPS drag?
spk07: Hey, Dave, it's Joe. There's no implications to either of those. It's really just the reallocation of those costs that we had been allocating to the Kentucky segment to and really from an investor perspective to align the Kentucky segment to the similar way that we had been reporting Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
spk06: So no implications there.
spk08: Okay, got it. Great. That's helpful. Then I was just curious, would you expect any ongoing elevated costs or personnel activity or anything like that on the back of the billing issues in Pennsylvania in terms of the – call center resources or anything like that, or is it going to be just temporary in terms of response there?
spk11: Yeah, no, that'll be temporary, David. We do have third-party contracts that we can lean on in times of need, which we've done. We've also reallocated some of our existing folks in other departments and trained them up on the call center activities. So, yeah, of course, the third-party contracts, we could dial those up and down. as needed and then our internal resources will just go back to their other departments when we're through with the call center duties that we have them doing.
spk13: Okay, understood. That's all I had. Thanks so much.
spk12: The next question comes from Greg Orle of UBS.
spk02: Please go ahead.
spk04: Yeah, thank you. Just with regard to the CPCN, how does the impact of inflation play into that with inflation slash supply constraints?
spk11: Those price estimates that are in our CPCN are all based on current pricing. We ran the RFP's in the summertime, so those RFP prices are included for solar projects. And again, we're using our internal cost estimates for the combined cycle units and any of these solar that we're proposing that we build. So I would say cost estimates are up to date there, no major issues with having to adjust those with what's in the CPCN.
spk13: All right, congratulations. Thanks, Greg.
spk02: The next question comes from Paul Zimbardo of Bank of America. Please go ahead.
spk13: Hi, good morning. Thank you.
spk11: Good morning, Paul. And good to hear about the Rhode Island reliability improvement so quick off the bat. Shifting to the gas side in Rhode Island, I know there's that future of gas proceeding ongoing. Just could you talk at a high level how that could impact the spending plans, whether in terms of magnitude or timing? Yeah, so we're early in that process, Paul, as you know. We did put a capital plan together to ensure the safety and reliability of the gas network while we work with the state on the future of gas docket. That'll take some time to get through. Again, as we think about the gas networks, not only in Rhode Island, but across the country, we certainly see a future for those, as do folks like EPRI and other independent research agencies in terms of the fuel that's flowing through those LDCs may be different. They may not be 100% natural gas. You could have renewable natural gas. You could have hydrogen gas. We could have other sources of fuel flowing through them, but there are certain processes that just don't lend themselves to electrification. And so long-term, while we certainly support and expect there to be a lot more electrification, we also expect there to be a need and a use for gas LDC networks. And so making sure that those networks are safe and reliable now continues to be top priority. But we will certainly be engaged with the state on the long-term future of that network.
spk13: Okay. Excellent.
spk11: Thank you. And one unrelated, and I know you may be a little limited in what you can say, but is there any update on the Talon litigation or arbitration now that that bankruptcy process is wrapped up? I know it's a legacy one, but just hoping we can put that one to bed sooner rather than later. Thanks. Yeah, there is actually. We are entering into mediation next week on February 22nd. That'll be before one of the judges in the Texas Bankruptcy Court. So yeah, there is an update there. We'll be heading into mediation next week.
spk13: Okay. Thank you very much.
spk02: The next question comes from Neil Calden of Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
spk06: Hi, guys. Just a question on Rhode Island. Yeah, it looks like, based on the guidance for 2023, that if my math is right, it might not be that you will be significantly under-earning the ROE. So my question is, are the cost savings coming in as expected thus far? And then in terms of bridging that gap, is this something that is ultimately going to require regulatory relief in 2026, or can it be accomplished faster?
spk07: Hey, Neil, it's Joe. So a couple points there. First on the Rhode Island guidance for 2023, I think we've discussed in the past a few times that we expect to experience some variability or noise in our Rhode Island earnings as we work through the transition period and stand up Rhode Island on our systems and processes. And so that's what you're seeing here. The primary driver of those lower earnings are due to costs as we work our way off the TSA. You know, there are costs such as staffing up our operations, training our new full-time employees, things like that. I do expect that to normalize once we've completed the TSA period in 2024. And, again, we expected this from the outset, and it's been embedded in our projections. Our outlook for Rhode Island remains very positive as we execute the plan, and I certainly expect to see growth there in 2024. As far as the O&M savings that we're projecting for 2023, the $50 to $60 million, those come predominantly from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. For the same reasons I talked about in Rhode Island, we're still working our way off those TSAs. So until we're on our systems and processes, we can't really drive O&M savings there through the transition period.
spk06: Okay, understood. And do you think by 2025 we're going to be earning, you know, close to the allowed there, or it might take a little bit more?
spk07: No, I think, you know, 2025 is certainly a normal year. We'll be off the TSAs by that period, you know, sometime in 2024. So you get a clean year in 2025. It will have been some time since the last rate case there. I think National Grid's last rate case was 2018. So we'll certainly expect to see an improvement in ROEs. We may need a rate case following that, but I think we'll continue to work through the plan and execute what we have in store there and see where we are. But we, again, feel good about the growth prospects in Rhode Island.
spk13: Got it. Thank you. Perfect.
spk02: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Vince Sorgi for any closing remarks.
spk11: Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Just want to reiterate, again, really pleased with our 2022 results where we ultimately came in, what we accomplished in 2022 to set us up for 2023 and beyond, and just really remain confident in our ability to deliver on what we've laid out for you all. And I can tell you the entire management team is aligned around the new strategy, and we're really looking forward to delivering it. So with that, hopefully we'll see you guys on some of the conference circuits or on NDRs, and look forward to chatting with you then.
spk02: The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.
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